| Order of the Golden Fleece Orden del Toisón de Oro Ordre de la Toison d'Or Orden vom Goldenen Vlies |
|
|---|---|
| Chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece (shown in the Schatzkammer in Vienna) | |
| Awarded by the King of Spain & Head of House of Habsburg |
|
| Motto | Pretium Laborum Non Vile Non Aliud |
| Awarded for | At the monarch's pleasure |
| Status | Currently constituted |
| Sovereign | Juan Carlos I of Spain Karl von Habsburg |
| Grades (w/ post-nominals) | Knight/Lady |
| Established | 1430 (see History) |
The Order of the Golden Fleece (Dutch: Orde van het Gulden Vlies; French: Ordre de la Toison d'Or; German: Orden vom Goldenen Vlies; Italian: Ordine del Toson d'Oro; Spanish: Orden del Toisón de Oro) is an order of chivalry founded in Bruges by Philip III, Duke of Burgundy in 1430, to celebrate his marriage to the Portuguese princess Infanta Isabella of Portugal, daughter of King John I of Portugal. It evolved as one of the most prestigious orders in Europe. Today there exist two branches of the Order: the Spanish and the Austrian Fleece; the current sovereigns of both branches are respectively Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, and Karl von Habsburg, grandson of Emperor Charles I of Austria.
Contents |
The Order of the Golden Fleece was established January 10, 1430, by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in celebration of the prosperous and wealthy domains united in his person that ran from Flanders to Switzerland. It is restricted to a limited number of knights, initially 24 but increased to 30 in 1433, and 50 in 1516, plus the sovereign.[1] It received further privileges unusual to any order of knighthood: the sovereign undertook to consult the order before going to war; all disputes between the knights were to be settled by the order; at each chapter the deeds of each knight were held in review, and punishments and admonitions were dealt out to offenders, and to this the sovereign was expressly subject; the knights could claim as of right to be tried by their fellows on charges of rebellion, heresy and treason, and Charles V conferred on the order exclusive jurisdiction over all crimes committed by the knights; the arrest of the offender had to be by warrant signed by at least six knights, and during the process of charge and trial he remained not in prison but in the gentle custody of his fellow knights. The order, conceived in an ecclesiastical spirit in which mass and obsequies were prominent and the knights were seated in choirstalls like canons,[2] was explicitly denied to "heretics", and so became an exclusively Catholic award during the Reformation.
The Order of the Golden Fleece was defended from possible accusations of prideful pomp by Guillaume Machaut, who asserted that it was instituted:
| “ | Non point pour jeu ne pour esbatement, Mais à la fin que soit attribuée |
” |
| “ | Not for amusement nor for recreation, But for the purpose that praise shall be given to God, |
” |
The choice of the Golden Fleece of Colchis as the symbol of a Christian order caused some controversy, not so much because of its pagan context, which could be incorporated in chivalric ideals, as in the Nine Worthies, but because the feats of Jason, familiar to all, were not without causes of reproach, expressed in anti-Burgundian terms by Alain Chartier in his Ballade de Fougères instancing Jason "qui pour emportrer la toison De Colcos se veult parjurer".[4] The bishop of Châlons, chancellor of the Order, rescued the fleece's reputation by identifying it instead with the fleece of Gideon that received the dew of Heaven.[5]
The badge of the Order, in the form of a sheepskin, was suspended from a jewelled collar of firesteels in the shape of the letter B, for Burgundy, linked by flints; with the motto "Pretium Laborum Non Vile" ("Not a bad reward for labour") engraved on the front of the central link, and Philip's motto "Non Aliud" ("I will have no other") on the back (non-royal knights of the Golden Fleece were forbidden to belong to any other order of knighthood).
With the absorption of the Burgundian lands into the Habsburg empire, the sovereignty of the Order passed to the Habsburg kings of Spain, where it remained until the death of the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, Charles II, in 1700. He was succeeded as king by Philip V, a Bourbon. The dispute between Philip and the Habsburg pretender to the Spanish throne, the Archduke Charles, led to the War of the Spanish Succession, and also resulted in the division of the Order into Spanish and Austrian branches. In either case the sovereign, as Duke of Burgundy, writes the letter of appointment in French.
The Spanish Order of the Fleece has been a source of controversy in the past, particularly during the Napoleonic period. The award of the Order to Napoleon and his brother Joseph angered the exiled King of France, Louis XVIII, and caused him to return his collar in protest. These, and other awards by Joseph, were revoked by King Ferdinand on the restoration of Bourbon rule in 1813.
In 1812 the acting government of Spain awarded the order to the Duke of Wellington, an act confirmed by Ferdinand on his resumption of power, with the approval of Pope Pius VII. Wellington therefore became the first Protestant to be awarded the Golden Fleece. It has subsequently also been awarded to non-Christians, like Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand.
There was another crisis in 1833 when Isabella II became Queen of Spain in defiance of Salic Law. Her right to award the Fleece was challenged by Spanish Carlists.
Sovereignty remained with the head of the Spanish house of Bourbon during the republican (1931–39) and Francoist (1939–1975) periods and is held today by the present King of Spain, Juan Carlos.
Knights of the Order are entitled to be addressed with the style His/Her Excellency in front of their name.[6]
Below a list of the names of the living knights and ladies, in chronologic order and with between brackets the date when they were inducted into the Order:
The Austrian Order did not suffer from the political difficulties of the Spanish, remaining an award solely for Catholic royals and nobles. The problem of female inheritance was avoided on the accession of Maria Theresa in 1740 as sovereignty of the Order passed not to herself but to her husband, Francis.
Upon the collapse of the Austrian monarchy after the First World War, King Albert I of Belgium requested that the sovereignty and treasure of the Order be transferred to him as the ruler of the former Habsburg lands of Burgundy. This claim was seriously considered by the victorious allies at Versailles but was eventually rejected due to the intervention of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who took possession of the property of the Order on behalf of the dethroned emperor, Charles I of Austria. Sovereignty remains with the head of the house of Habsburg, which was handed over in 2007 by Otto von Habsburg to his eldest son, Karl von Habsburg.
Below a list of the names of the living knights, in chronological order and with between brackets the date when they were inducted into the Order:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.